NS Best-Seller, Sales Drop for NS, PS5, and XS - Japan Hardware Estimates for February 2024 - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 08 March 2024 / 6,929 Views
The Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console in Japan with 211,407 units sold for February 2024, according to VGChartz estimates. The Nintendo Switch has now sold an estimated 32.33 million units lifetime in Japan.
The PlayStation 5 sold an estimated 160,567 units to bring its lifetime sales to 5.35 million units. The Xbox Series X|S sold 10,234 units to bring their lifetime sales to 0.56 million units. The PlayStation 4 sold an estimated 3,507 units to bring its lifetime sales to 9.67 million units.
PS5 sales compared to the same month for the PS4 in 2016 are up by nearly 25,000 units, while the Xbox Series X|S compared to the same month for the Xbox One are up by over 9,000 units. PS4 sold 135,992 units for the month of February 2017 and Xbox One sales were at 817 units.
Nintendo Switch sales compared to the same month a year ago are down by 9,675 units (-4.4%). PlayStation 5 sales are down by 206,463 (-56.3%) and Xbox Series X|S sales are down by 15,669 units (-60.5%). The PlayStation 4 is down by 1,814 units (-34.1%) year-over-year.
Looking at sales month-on-month, Nintendo Switch sales are up down by nearly 72,000 units, the PlayStation 5 sales are down by over 59,000 units, and Xbox Series X|S sales are down by less than 1,000 units.
2024 year-to-date, the Nintendo Switch has sold an estimated 0.49 million units, the PlayStation 5 has sold 0.38 million units, and the Xbox Series X|S has sold 0.02 million units.
Monthly Sales:
Japan hardware estimates for February 2024 (Followed by lifetime sales):
- Switch - 211,407 (32,330,172)
- PlayStation 5 - 160,567 (5,346,958)
- Xbox Series X|S - 10,234 (564,766)
- PlayStation 4 - 3,507 (9,672,819)
Weekly Sales:
Japan February 10, 2024 hardware estimates:
- Switch - 49,558
- PlayStation 5 - 40,754
- Xbox Series X|S - 3,101
- PlayStation 4 - 942
Japan February 17, 2024 hardware estimates:
- Switch - 48,407
- PlayStation 5 - 38,223
- Xbox Series X|S - 1,655
- PlayStation 4 - 472
Japan February 24, 2024 hardware estimates:
- PlayStation 5 - 50898
- Switch - 33511
- Xbox Series X|S - 3,120
- PlayStation 4 - 366
Japan March 2, 2024 hardware estimates:
- Switch - 62,544
- PlayStation 5 - 48,079
- Xbox Series X|S - 2,358
- PlayStation 4 - 1,727
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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"Nintendo Switch sales compared to the same month a year ago are down by 9,675 units (-4.4%)."
That's really impressive
Switch right there with the DS, will pass here soon
The Switch is a beast.
PS5 and Xbox's drop is huge for a 4th year console. It looks like this generation is starting to stagnate.
Completely missing the context of why the PS5 sales were so high last year.
Japan has a fickle market when it comes to the non-Nintendo consoles. I wouldn't base the gaming climate solely off of these figures, however bad they may look.
They don’t look bad at all. 40k a week in February is still much higher than the baseline sales figures established by the PS4 and PS3.
-56% and -60% are objectively bad numbers for a console in it’s forth year.
That number is meaningless because it's 56% less than a number that was artificially high due to previous supply constraints.
In February 2023 PS5 sales were up 460%.
40k a week is the sales number. It's a pretty high number for a home console.
never denied the fact that numbers were inflated during this period last year due to pent up demand finally being met. All I'm saying is the YoY looks rather rough: -56% is pretty terrible. I don't believe the Switch will even see such a big decline YoY in April/May 2024 despite the TotK hype last year.
That being said, I am curious how these figures compare with previous Playstation consoles? 160k doesn't seem that bad for Sony, though I can't say I'm too familiar with the norm.
(p.s. If you wanna make enemies on this site, downvoting every commenting and upvoting your own is a sure-fire way to do it. I personally don't care, just saying not everyone will be so kind to it.)
The fact the Switch is still outselling the PS5 this late shows that once the Switch 2 releases hell will break loose in Japan. I fully expect PS5 sales to collapse if the Switch 2 gets most if not all Japanese 3rd Party support.
So PS5 Slim isn't such a game changer like PS3 Slim. Probably because of its price.
Do you think the PS5 can outperform the PS3 in Japan?
Functionally it’s not a PS5 Slim. One day there might actually be a PS5 Slim though and it will likely give a large boost to sales.
Why is the PS5 Slim not a functional PS5 Slim?
Firstly it’s not called “PS5 Slim” and even if it was it would not be functionally a PS5 Slim by virtue of it not actually being significantly slimmer or smaller. It is not a significant redesign, just a unification of two separate SKUs
It's really crazy. Sony never called it the "slim" but everyone ridiculed them for it not being slim enough, even though they never called it a "slim". Totally unfair but it got some free marketing I guess
wow, i had to look that up, crazy how best buy calls it a ps5 slim
That's weird cause the Playstation store says differently.
https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-consoles/playstation5-console-model-group-slim
But I do agree with your reasoning.
it's not a slim anyways, we haven't seen a PS5 slim yet
Strange, so if a "true" slim would come out would Sony call it PS5 Slimmer? Because there is a PS5 Slim on market already.
You know there’s a PS3 Super Slim right? There’s no rules on how many times you can modify your console design.
That's actually cool. Ok so if there is a 3rd slim, could it be called PS5 Super Duper Slim?
(also they raised prices to $450, if Sony can't price drop the console to $300 they've got a problem, it looks like Crypto and then AI has made sourcing the chips at lower prices impossible)
It's selling on par with the PS4 and the PS4 was their most successful console ever in terms of game sales and revenue generated. Doesn't sound too problematic to me.
The Xbox Series is doing very well in Japan. With any luck it can reach up to 1 million units sold in Japan. It's a shame that in the rest of the world he's doing poorly
Really expected PS5 to take over for the year in Japan but it seems it might not for now... Switch has surprisingly a strong hold too. Maybe releasing the successor this year was too early indeed. They will def sell around 10 millons units WW. I hope they can use this "delay" to produce as much as possible cause the launch for Switch 2 will be absolutely massive.
13-13,5m in 2024.
Times are changing
For the sales weeks of Feb 24 and Mar 2. The sales numbers of the PS5 and the Switch are flipped.
Essay Pro